Mariner boys lose playoff bid to Penobscot ValleyScott's Sport Spot

Deer Isle—The boys soccer team lost their preliminary playoff game to Penobscot Valley 1-0. The best way to describe this game is that it was a battle. Though PVHS controlled the ball more than we did, we held our own against this quality team. Ethan Shepard played a stellar game in goal as well as the rest of the defense as they were tested throughout the game. Ethan had 17 saves on 25 shots and PVHS saved all of our three shots.

PVHS scored about midway in the first half, and though we didn’t have a lot of offense, we put a big push on in the last 10 minutes to try and get the equalizer. It was called a bit rough and Coach Joe Stinson felt PVHS had the advantage of a deeper bench to keep their legs fresher. He was very proud of our effort and that we gave it everything we had, even in defeat.

Soccer is a tough sport to quantify since there are not many statistics beyond goals and saves. Not only is there a lot of effort out on the field but it is so critical to work together and communicate with each other. It is always hard to be on the losing end of such a tightly contested game, but we can be satisfied that we gave it all we had and almost pulled off the upset.